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Comment by AussieWog93 | Hacker News Reader

>The problem is that you can't possibly become fluent in a language with an app like it and there isn't any single app that will.

I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language.

It is an amazingly powerful tool to bootstrap you from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talking about", though.

I cannot think of a single more effective method than Duolingo to get over this first hurdle.

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> I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language.

I'm active in various Facebook/Reddit groups dealing with language learning. The average user, who's never learned a language before, does think DL will make them fluent. And DL advertises themselves in this manner as well. It's a common issue: "I've got my entire tree gold, why can't I understand natives?"

> I cannot think of a single more effective method than Duolingo to get over this first hurdle.

I think an actual coursebook is more useful, but it also likely depends on person. DL doesn't really teach language skills for most the courses. It has you translate, you never practice reading for comprehension, listening for comprehension (or listening to natives at all, in the courses with TTS), or writing. And not to mention the default of 'click the words' in the mobile app doesn't force recall at all.

≥ you never practice reading for comprehension

This has existed for at least two years: https://www.duolingo.com/stories

Yes, it does not cover every language but the intent is to address that ( perceived ) complaint.

I disagree that an actual coursebook is more helpful.

I used Duo for 6 months prior to moving to a Germany. It gave me an incredible confidence boost to be able to at least understand what was going on around me.

After living in Berlin for 6 months I did a course and I was far ahead of others who had taken formal courses before.

It has been 2 years since I left Germany, I still do my Duo daily and have continued doing German courses.

It has helped maintain my minimal ability.

> it also likely depends on person

Indeed. My partner at the time did the same as me and Duo did not work for her at all.

> This has existed for at least two years: https://www.duolingo.com/stories

I'm aware of stories, but given that it's only available in a small minority of languages, I'd say it's fair to say DL doesn't offer it when the majority of their languages don't (and likely won't ever) have stories.

they used to have you read wiki articles like, 6 years ago? I feel that over the years, Duolingo started focusing way more on the game aspect than learning.

The spaced repetition is also mostly gone, only somewhat available on desktop.

This is not true, they've made changes recently to their premium features that forces you to do training (spaced tasks).

I see... It's kinda true still, as before we had that on the free plan.

> It's a common issue: "I've got my entire tree gold, why can't I understand natives?"

As an alternative anecdote, I've been using Duolingo for years and spend some time in the forums + different Spanish learning communities whose users frequently use Duolingo and I have never seen anyone ever ask this.

It's always struck me as obvious to everyone that you would need multiple resources to become fluent, but Duolingo is useful as a good quality free resource that can be done anywhere at any time.

I'm not saying you're wrong, as we probably come across different posts or groups, just an another experience to share.

Audio is the most important and hardest component of learning a language so apps have a huge advantage over textbooks any day. I really don't think recommending textbooks is at all relevant these days. Graded readers are better for simulating immersion. Apps are better for getting your feet wet. Textbooks can teach grammar but so can apps and really you have to be pretty far along for grammar to be the main stumbling block (over listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary).

I use newsinslowfrench.com for this very reason. They have a whole library of grammer lessons and language learning courses, but the main product really is that every week they produce 4 "news broadcasts" actually talking about news of the week by native speakers. In addition to the general listening reenforcement, each weeks script emphasizes a particular element of grammer and comes along with that topics lesson. They product both a speaking slow and speaking at a normal speed version so you can start with the slow one to get an understanding of what is happening, then listen to the actual speed lesson and have a chance. It's an awesome program, but it doesn't scale to other languages in the way that some general-purpsoe learn all the languages startup can.

> Audio is the most important and hardest component of learning a language so apps have a huge advantage over textbooks any day.

Assuming the apps actually use native speaker audio. Which Duolingo doesn't do.

> I really don't think recommending textbooks is at all relevant these days.

I disagree completely. Textbooks are still, in my opinion and experience, the most efficient way to start learning a language.

> really you have to be pretty far along for grammar to be the main stumbling block (over listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary).

I wouldn't agree you have to be "pretty far along". Grammar becomes a huge stumbling block as soon as you get outside the pleasantries section of learning. Once you start trying to talk about your day and what you'll do and did, then the grammar really starts to matter.

Why do you say Duolingo doesn’t use native speakers? Their Spanish speakers for example are either native or indistinguishable from native speakers.

Then that's an update. For the longest time it was simply TTS, with all the downsides that contains.

They've been working on improving their recordings for years. It's a lot better now.

The old FSI language courses are very effective. And free and in the public domain.

FSI combines hundreds of pages of print materials with hundreds of verbal audio drills. I used it to supplement a French course in college and my professor asked me how I advanced so quickly. The course materials were doing very little for the rest of the class because they didn't force natural language thinking. FSI grammar drills make you think on your feet in conversations with different roles and grammatical rules.

I had also tried Rosetta and Pimsleur at the time. Years later I tried Duolingo for another language. To me they all feel like fun toys, but only toys compared to FSI. If I wanted to learn another language, I'd check if it had an FSI course.

If you search, you’ll find plenty of people willing to sell you some “FSI” courses for hundreds of dollars. Is there an official source for FSI courses?

It looks like https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/ is what you want.

Surely there are updates to the FSI courses, right? Like what does our state department today use? Have they entirely farmed the job out to private institutions like Rosetta Stone and community colleges?

I've not heard of FSI before. Thanks for the recommend.

There are definitely more effective methods, just mostly not free and more time demanding.

I have a mission to get B1 French, tried Duolingo with some basic level for cca 6 months in past year. You get into the bubble that you think you are progressing but reality is, its a very narrow and not-so-useful progress if whole language knowledge is your goal - mostly passive skills and certain type of language usage that goes along with the type of exercises in Duolingo.

If you want real language knowledge, as OP mentions speaking is the hardest part (active & rapid usage of all that you know), and Duolingo doesn't prepare you for this, at all. If your goal is purely passive reading newspapers/articles, then its helpful a bit, but I would still use at least 2-3 other methods if you are even a bit serious about it.

Try talking to people after using just Duolingo, heck try writing an official letter on whatever topic. You will not just struggle, you will fail if you don't use any external help.

I've made tremendous progress with zoom meetings with professional teacher over shorter period of time. But its because I made it a priority and dedicated my time to it. And it costs quite a bit (doesn't have to, but my case is quite specific).

>tried Duolingo with some basic level for cca 6 months in past year

To be honest with you, I think you spent too much time on Duolingo. It's definitely not a suitable tool for learning new things after the first 8-12 weeks (assuming you put in around 30-60 minutes a day).

To be fair, though, in that short initial period you can pretty easily learn close to 1000 common words, as well as basic sentence structure in your target langauge.

This is immensely useful if you want to start communicating with others online or reading texts in your target language; you're looking up the few words you don't know rather than staring at a wall of gibberish.

I found watching French TV helped get the equivalent of language immersion.

One source that isn't region locked is TV5Monde [1], you can view programmes online if it isn't available as a broadcast channel where you are.

[1] http://www.tv5monde.com/

Duolingo isn't really intended to get you to B1. And even if it were, it would take more than six months to get there.

A commonly cited statistic is that it takes 360 hours in a classroom to reach B1. Duolingo claims to proceed faster than classroom hours, but there's enough fuzz in that number to suppose that it's closer to 1:1. You just can't realistically do 360 hours of Duolingo in six months.

Duolingo could at best help you reach an A3, and even then you'd have to supplement it with reading and (ideally) conversation. Duolingo plus outside reading and listening could get you to a B1 level in a year if you really put your mind to it.

They even make a podcast available, to help the listening part. I happen to listen to the French one myself, and highly recommend it. The stories are interesting and well produced, and bring stories (and accents) from all around the Francophonie.

Doing it with a personal teacher will always be better than an app, but Duolingo gives a huge jump start on that. For free.

They started adding B1 level content a couple years ago, although I agree with the overall point that it's probably not going to get you there on its own.

https://blog.duolingo.com/how-are-duolingo-courses-evolving/

I just completed all of that content up to French level 1. It's helpful in introducing a lot of important-but-uncommon verb cases (conditional, subjunctive), but at least at level 1 I still wouldn't really be able to follow them in context.

It sure as hell doesn't help that in French they all sound the same. They're clear enough in written form, but French in particular requires close attention to context. Even other Romance languages draw the same distinctions more clearly.

One of the problems with the Spanish course is that all the later content (past checkpoint 5 or so) just stops explaining things at all, so it's up to the user to figure out things like how the negative imperative uses the subjunctive case. It's okay if you've taken a more structured language course in the past but I can imagine people starting from scratch just getting completely lost at that point.

I agree. I feel like there's 3 phases to learning a new language.

Background: English first language, French second, and I've been trying to learn Japanese.

The three phases are:

1. Learning basic alphabet (if different from your own), basic grammar. Unlocks: being able to access more learning material and more rapid progress. Progress on these first building blocks is slow and can be discouraging.

2. Learning full grammar control. Even the most basic prose uses ~all of the tenses and conjugation rules. Unlocks: reading/watching non-educational native material.

3. Learning the culture and filling out vocab. Lots of languages are idiomatic, and understanding real-world usage can require just as much that you read Candide as that you memorize flashcards of more-obscure vocab (more-obscure meaning things like "chandelier". It's not an uncommon word, but a second-language learner probably won't run into it in wordbanks or anything.)

I think Duolingo is good for doing 1, and like, half of 2. I don't think it can get you to 3.

For 2, how often do you see Future Perfect Continuous or just Future Perfect anywhere outside of literary works?

I'd put grammar at much lower priority than vocabulary & common phrases, since knowing just a bunch of words (at least in most languages) can get you very far.

Duo is pretty good if your are a second language learner, with some courses/living experience under your belt and want to make sure you've covered all of the basic vocabulary. Like, maybe you never learned the word for "turkey" and it never came up.

DuoLingo is great as a first hurdle (better than e.g. Babbel, as it's friendly and eases you in gradually) - but there are diminishing returns. I found it useful to jump ship partway through the course and move to LingQ (which has a comparatively crude UX but exposes you to much more context.)

> from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talking about", though.

I think this too vastly oversells what Duolingo can do.

This. Duolingo is a great introduction to a language and can get you from not knowing a word to being able to understand something and maybe have basic tourist-level conversational skills.

Nothing gets you to fluency without actually just immersing yourself in a language for awhile.

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